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Search System Design Case Studies

InterviewSkool tracks 19 Search case studies with architecture diagrams, scale estimates, and deep dives.

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Companies

Topics

Distributed Systems 90Real-time 51Storage 43Data Pipelines 42API Design 41Databases 38Caching 37Security 32AI / ML 23Algorithms 20Scheduling 20Search 19Event Driven 14Fintech 14Payments 11Geospatial 11Analytics 11Observability 11E-commerce 11Messaging 10CDN 9Concurrency 8Ads 8Frontend 8Booking System 6Networking 5IoT 4Media 3Media Streaming 3Collaboration 3Rate Limiting 2
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Instagram
17 min readDistributed SystemsMediaSearch
Advanced+2▶ Mock
Search Engine (Google)
15 min readSearchDistributed SystemsStorage
Advanced—▶ Mock
Shazam
14 min readSearchReal-timeAlgorithms
Advanced—▶ Mock
Booking.com Design
5 min readBooking SystemSearchGeospatial
Beginner—▶ Mock
Web Crawler
15 min readDistributed SystemsStorageSearch
Advanced+2▶ Mock
Centralized Logging System (ELK / Splunk)
6 min readObservabilityData PipelinesSearch
Intermediate+1▶ Mock
Faceted Product Search at Large Scale (Amazon)
4 min readSearchE-commerceDistributed Systems
Intermediate▶ Mock
Flight Search Platform (Google Flights / Kayak)
4 min readSearchCachingData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Train Search and Seat Availability DB Design (IRCTC)
4 min readDatabasesBooking SystemSearch
Intermediate▶ Mock
Streaming Mention Analytics with Search and Alerts (Bloomberg)
3 min readReal-timeSearchAnalytics
Advanced▶ Mock
Multimodal RAG Assistant over an Internal Knowledge Base
4 min readAI / MLSearchData Pipelines
Advanced▶ Mock
Large-Scale Near-Duplicate Video Detection
4 min readAI / MLMediaSearch
Advanced▶ Mock
News Aggregator (Google News)
6 min readSearchData PipelinesCaching
Intermediate▶ Mock
Post Privacy and Visibility System (Facebook-style)
4 min readSecurityDistributed SystemsCaching
Advanced▶ Mock
Social Post Search (Keyword and Boolean Queries)
6 min readSearchDistributed SystemsAlgorithms
Intermediate▶ Mock
Proximity Search (Yelp / Nearby Restaurants)
7 min readGeospatialSearchCaching
Intermediate▶ Mock
Detecting and Reducing Stale Job Listings (LinkedIn)
4 min readData PipelinesAI / MLSearch
Intermediate▶ Mock
Tagging System with Clean REST APIs (Confluence / Jira Labels)
3 min readAPI DesignDatabasesSearch
Beginner▶ Mock
Typeahead / Search Autocomplete
6 min readSearchCachingData Pipelines
Intermediate▶ Mock

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Search in system design?

Search is a core system design topic covered in 19 case studies on InterviewSkool. It appears frequently in FAANG interviews, especially at Google, Amazon, and Meta.

How should I prepare Search for system design interviews?

Study the case studies above, focusing on architecture trade-offs, scale estimates, and API designs. Practice explaining your decisions aloud — this is exactly what interviewers evaluate.

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